Day 59 to Issyk Kul (Tong), Kyrgyzstan, 129km, 5113 to date.  545m up, 1583m end

An easy day, reasonable pavement, other than I broke the rear shifter cable immediately after starting out in the morning.  So I had a one speed bike till lunch, then was able to repair at lunch.  Good thing it was an essentially flat ride.

A bit of excitement on the ride today:  A car was approaching me at speed, then I noticed the front left of the car drop, the car going into a skid and the front left wheel came off, heading at some 60km/hr towards me - luckily I had no trouble avoiding.

We spent the day cycling along the shore of Lake Issyk Kul - the view across the lake was exactly like looking from Victoria over to the Olympic Mountains, with the near shore very much like the Okanagan.

There were various resorts along the lake, including one that apparently was a vacation retreat for the KGB.  Another place was being built in memory of Monas  the guy that created 300,000 verses that used to be passed down as oral history only.

Some pics:

How many kids do you see in the apricot tree?

Drying my laundry: